Bin tax? Just look to the world's cleanest country
You report on the idea of making households pay for the rubbish they throw away, as a means to decrease pressure on landfill and increase recycling, without much hope of any such scheme being implemented in the near future in the UK (25 September, p 18).
Switzerland has had this for decades, based not on weight, but on volume. “Burnable” rubbish must be put in a special bag, obtainable from supermarkets. The bags come in various sizes, with the price set to cover disposal 鈥� not so high as to encourage fly-tipping, but even a modest sum nudges everyone to minimise the waste they generate. Commercial premises pay a higher fee for a whole container’s worth.
Putting glass, paper, plastics, aluminium, tin cans, batteries and so on into the various recycling bins is free. Electrical waste can be taken back to any shop selling electrical goods, with the cost of recycling covered by a prepayment included in the price of goods.
Food waste: try pigswill and spreadsheets please (1)
Marta Zaraska made important points about food waste, especially from restaurants and other food outlets. One factor in this are the UK and EU bans on the use of this waste as pigswill (25 September, p 42). Pigs, and chickens and rabbits during the second world war in the UK, have always been used to convert food waste into protein.
Pigswill was banned after the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK, but Japan and South Korea still use it and control the disease well. We will have to once again move to using our waste to feed animals.
Food waste: try pigswill and spreadsheets please (2)
For the past two years, I have been putting all my food purchases onto a spreadsheet, detailing the quantity and use-by or best-before dates. Since I began, I have only wasted two items. I review the list daily and make my menu for the following day from it.
There are many ways of looking at military AI (1)
Some will say that using AI to identify targets for military strikes is a dangerous step down the road to mechanised, dehumanised warfare (2 October, p 14). Others will say that having two parallel decision processes, AI and human, will reduce, though not eliminate, error. Yet others will say that no targeting can be perfect, so no strikes should ever take place.
The only sensible criterion is the utilitarian one, always recognising that value judgements must be made. Preventing or reducing a great evil at the risk of a smaller one can be a least-worst course.
There are many ways of looking at military AI (2)
Questions about such use of AI are raised by Arthur Holland at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. He asks whether, in the case of an erroneous target selection, the use of AI might “affect the balance of human responsibility and accountability”. I find this troubling because the question itself suggests we are yet again in danger of allowing people to “blame the computer”.
We cannot afford to allow anyone in the chain of command to hide behind the argument that they weren’t responsible for the actions of their agents, regardless of whether the agents in question were human or machine.
Don't allow heat pumps to be used to cool homes
Ken Jensen’s timely warning that heat pumps can operate on a cooling cycle in the summer should ring very loud alarm bells (Letters, 2 October). Unless this feature is disabled by legislation, as the UK government seeks to roll out this type of system, it is just another way to accelerate the apocalypse as energy use will explode to meet “vital” cool comfort conditions.
Summer heat calls for better house design, with shade, planting, parasol and venting features.
Bitcoin as national legal tender is a terrible idea
Yes, there is a need to maintain the ability to perform anonymous transactions in a free society (18 September, p 16). However, the news that the El Salvador government is accepting bitcoin 鈥� billed as anonymous 鈥� as tender is disturbing. Proof-of-work blockchain currencies like bitcoin are a bad idea because of their carbon footprint from the use of lots of energy and materials.
True spite is in the eye of the beholder
The experiments cited in your entertaining article on spite could cut two or more ways (4 September, p 40).
For example, in the Ultimatum Game, the potential spitefulness of the “receiver” is considered in a one-play, known-rules, sharing game, yet the possible spitefulness of the “giver” goes unremarked. Why is it spiteful to reject 20 per cent of a shared pot of money when both parties know this is about sharing an unearned gift, yet the spitefulness of the short-changing “giver” is ignored?
Moggies gurn when they want to play-fight too
You report that hyenas make a face when they want to play-fight (2 October, p 23). Cats also make play faces. Our 11-year-old arches her whiskers forward and opens her mouth slightly when playing. Her expression when hunting or fighting is very different 鈥� the play face can’t be mistaken. I have had numerous cats over the years and they all had a distinctive play face.
Foundation eventually got its share of female heroes
I have sympathy with the view that women don’t feature significantly in the first book of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series (2 October, p 32). I would, however, point out that in subsequent parts of the trilogy, we do see three significant and strong women: Bayta Darell, Arkady Darell and Lady Callia. Perhaps Asimov was feeling guilty.
For the record
Grace Maddrell, author of Tomorrow Is Too Late, uses they/them pronouns (2 October, p 33).
A quote in our feature on AI (9 October, p 36) was partially attributed. It was made by Ellie Pavlick at Brown University in Rhode Island and Google AI.